Police Log

Posted
Thursday, January 19, 2012 1:00 pm

The Police Log is a digest of reports filed by the Warwick Police

HABITUALOfficer William Castaldi reported a North Providence man was charged with felony shoplifting on Jan. 15 after Kohl’s loss prevention personnel called police about a shoplifting in progress at Rhode Island Mall on Jan. 15.Castaldi said he and several other officers responded to the store and waited outside as a loss prevention officer gave them updates about a suspect filling a shopping bag with items before leaving without paying for the goods. Castaldi said he stopped the man outside, told him to put the bag down and then patted him down, cuffed him and placed him in the back seat of his cruiser. He said loss prevention did an inventory of what they found in the bag and said 14 Red Sox thermal tops worth $60 a piece; one $48 Red Sox hoodie; one Patriots windbreaker priced at $85, a Patriots T-shirt for a kid worth $18; and a Red Sox T-shirt worth $18 were recovered from the bag. The store estimated the total at $1,009.Castaldi reported that there was an arrest warrant out for the suspect in Warwick and Richard J. Verdone was charged as a habitual offender. (According to the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Criminal Records Search, there are 310 case numbers on file for Verdone, under his own name and four aliases, since the early 1990s.) He was arraigned before the bail commissioner and then remanded to the ACI.

SHOPLIFTINGA suspect came all the way to Rhode Island from New Hampshire to get arrested for shoplifting at Macy’s in Warwick Mall on Jan. 14. Officer Quentin Tavares reported he was dispatched to the store to take custody of Alyssa Cyr, 21, of 37 Shelburne Rd., Merrimack, N.H., where loss prevention agents told him they watched her conceal a number of items on her person before leaving the store without paying for $526.50 worth of them. Tavares said she later admitted she took four items from Claire’s in the same mall earlier but there were no witnesses to that, so she was charged with possession of stolen goods for that instead. She was later remanded to the ACI after she could not pay the $1,000 surety bail.A Connecticut woman was arrested at Walmart on Jan. 14 after loss prevention agents at the Post Road store told police they saw her conceal several items on her person before she went to the registers and paid for others before leaving without paying for the concealed items. Loss prevention told police they recovered $187.67 worth of goods from Donna S. Allicock, 47, of 19 Dean Ave., East Winsor.A Providence man was charged with shoplifting at Macy’s on Jan. 11 after loss prevention told police they saw him conceal three pairs of pants and three neckties worth a total of $329. John C. Mertzlufft, 33, of 48 Harvest St. in Providence was held for the bail commissioner. He was charged with shoplifting and not to come back to the store or he would be arrested for trespassing.Nicholas E. Morra, 18, of 100 Overlook Dr., Warwick, was arrested and charged with shoplifting at the JC Penney store in Warwick Mall on Jan. 14. A loss prevention agent told police she saw him take several items from the displays and conceal them before attempting to leave without paying for them. She told Officer Quentin Tavares they recovered $28 of clothing items from Morra. He was later released on $2,000 surety bail.

LARCENIESOfficer Daniel Lopez reported the larceny of two boat stands and a marine engine distributor from a property on Second Point Road. A boat owner told him he noticed the theft on Jan. 7 when he came to the property and saw that two of the boat stands his boat had been resting on had been removed, leaving the boat balanced between the remaining two stands. He also pointed out that the distributor cap from the boat’s motor had been taken. He said the stands were worth around $250 and the distributor cap $300. No suspects or witnesses.Officer Jacob Elderkin reported an attempted car theft at Hollow Crest Apartments on Jan. 9. A woman there told him she came out to her car that morning and found the doors were locked yet stuff from the glove compartment was strewn around the seat. She said the car wouldn’t start and she then saw that the fuse box cover was removed from under the steering wheel and she began to think someone tried to steal the car. Elderkin said there was plenty of “juice” left in the battery and she speculated that someone “shorted” the electrical system trying to start it without a key. No suspects or witnesses.An employee at the Chipotle Mexican Grill on Bald Hill Road told police someone smashed the back window of his girlfriend’s car in the parking lot while he was working in the restaurant on Jan. 11 and stole her pocketbook that was left in the car. Officer Aaron Steere said she came into headquarters later and gave him a statement about the larceny. She told Steere her boyfriend drove the car to work and called her later to tell her passenger side rear window was busted and the purse was gone. She said the Juicy Couture pocketbook was worth $200 and the Coach wallet was worth $150. She said there was also $150 in the wallet, along with various forms of identification and credit and debit cards. No suspects or witnesses.

DUI AND REFUSALOfficer Nelson Carreiro said he was on patrol around 6:25 p.m. when he got a call about an erratic driver heading into Warwick on the Airport Connector. He said he located the vehicle on Main Avenue and began to follow the car as it swayed between lanes and then over the double yellow lines on West Shore Road and pulled the car over on Shand Avenue. He said the driver appeared to be intoxicated and smelled strongly of alcohol. He said the driver could not finish a field sobriety test before Carreiro stopped it for the man’s safety. William F. Thorpe, 53, of 78 Shand Ave., was charged with DUI and refusal after he declined a breath test at headquarters. He was later released to a sober taxi driver to be transported home.Officer Russell Brown reported he was on Warwick Avenue around 1 a.m. on Jan. 10 when he saw a car speeding through the intersection at Edgehill Road onto Warwick and then down Belfort Avenue on the left-hand side of the road until it stopped in front of 51 Belfort. He said the driver got out of the car and he ordered him to get back inside and show him his license. He said the driver asked him “Why are you pulling me over?” and he told him again to get in the car and sit down. He said he asked the man where he was going and he said to a friend’s house to watch movies. Brown said the man appeared to be under the influence and he was about to question him more when he heard a call about a malicious damage incident on Edgehill Road over the radio. He said he also noticed that the driver had the same last name as the complainant and that the man he stopped had a baseball bat in the back seat of his car, which could have been used to smash a vehicle’s window on Edgehill Road. Brown said he asked the driver to submit to a field sobriety test and he took it and failed. He said the driver, John J. D’Amato, 22, of 36 Yucatan Dr., Warwick, was taken to headquarters where he blew a .181 and a .178 blood alcohol content on the breath test. Brown said he suspected that D’Amato was the man who smashed the car window on Edgehill Road, but no one had seen him do it. Brown said he had already found a piece of glass on the seat of D’Amato’s car, but then he noticed that the cuffs of D’Amato’s jeans had been rolled up. He said D’Amato rolled down the cuffs when he asked him to and pieces of broken glass fell from the cuffs. D’Amato was charged with DUI and domestic malicious damage for breaking his cousin’s car window.